It’s About TIME!
E120: Elden Ring Director makes history for the gaming world.
Good morning gamers! TIME Magazine releases a list of the 100 most influential people on a yearly basis. In 2007, Shigeru Miyamoto was included on that list for his work as a Game Designer and Producer for Nintendo. Hidetaka Miyazaki, the Director of Elden Ring now joins Miyamoto as the second video game developer to be featured on the 100 most influential people list.
Miyazaki has great influence in the gaming industry and as the president of FromSoftware, he’s directed legendary games such as Bloodborne, Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls. Elden Ring, his most recent action role-playing game, was released on February 25th, 2022 and has already sold more than 20 million copies. Shadow of the Erdtree was announced as the first Elden Ring expansion earlier this year.
Neil Druckmann, the Co-President of Naughty Dog and a fellow video-game developer shared his thoughts on Miyazaki’s work. Druckmann says that Miyazaki’s games “make the player feel accomplished and smart—and it’s all thanks to his and his team’s uncompromising approach”. Druckmann also said that Miyazaki’s games allow the players to discover the mechanics and the lore on their own.
Diablo 4 - Constant Stream of Content
Blizzard’s long-awaited Diablo IV game is set to launch on June 6th for PlayStation, Xbox and PC. Ahead of the game’s official launch, Blizzard hosted two beta periods, the early access open beta which saw more than 1 million players reach at least level 20 and the open beta where players accumulated more than 62 million hours played. These results make it the “biggest beta in Diablo franchise history”.
Last week Diablo’s Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora took part in a roundtable interview where he discussed Diablo IV and it’s future in more detail, even confidently stating that “Diablo 4 is an action RPG first […] it is a dungeon crawling, monster slashing, monster killing, loot collecting game”. Here’s the TLDR,
Diablo IV’s post-launch content will consist of quarterly updates including new story content (aka, new quest lines) that will tie into new mechanics and features.
Each update will coincide with a seasonal battle pass, free and premium, that should take roughly 80 hours of gameplay to complete. Completing the battle pass won’t necessarily be enough to get a player all the way to the 100 level cap.
After you complete the main storyline, returning to dungeons you’ve beat (nightmare dungeons) or areas of the map you’ve passed (Hilltides) will offer harder and unique challenges, including bounties and PvP zones.
Piepiora said that “we’re not trying to create a situation where players feel they must play forever. We want players who play Diablo 4 to play and enjoy the experience”.
Esports Corner
🥇 Congratulations to Cloud9 for winning the LCS Spring Finals.
The International Esports Federation (IEF) revealed that CS:GO, Dota 2, Tekken 7, eFootball, PUBG Mobile, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang will be the featured games at the upcoming World Esports Championships in Romania. This is the exact same game lineup as last year's World Esports Championships in Bali, including a female only CS:GO event.
Indian tournament organizer Skyesports has announced the Skyesports Masters, a CS:GO franchised league for India. The new league will aim to revive CS:GOs popularity in the country, and will span over three months concluding with a grand finals where 8 teams will fight for their share of the $245,000 prize pool. Teams can build their roster with local talent or international talent.
The Rocket League World Championships will be officially held in Dusseldorf, Germany from August 8th-13th. Teams who qualified as a result of their performance in the Fall, Winter or Spring Major, and teams who qualify via the last chance qualifier will fight for the $2.1m prize pool.
The LCS Spring finals, which took place in Raleigh, North Carolina between March 26th and April 9th generated an estimated $1.6m in economic impact for the city. Raleigh's tourism authority estimated that 3,000 people booked hotel rooms, and 70% of the tournament attendees were new visitors to the city.
Gaming Roundup
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been delayed again by Rocksteady Studios, it will now launch on February 2nd, 2024.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has surpassed $500 million at the global box office. The movie has become the biggest video game adaptation in history.
Alan Wake 2 is still on course to be released later this year. Remedy Entertainment has changed their logo for the first time in 20 years.
Fall Guys will reportedly launch Season 10 on May 10th, alongside a level editor mode allowing players to create and edit their own levels.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has gone gold and is now available for pre-order ahead of the May 25th launch for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC.
Redfall developer Arkane Studios has announced the game will launch with only 30FPS for Xbox Series X/S. A 60FPS performance update will come at a later date.
Hypercharge: Unboxed, the shooter game that brings toys to life is pleading with Xbox players who are waiting for the game to stop abusing them.
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